


thrash & flail

by muined



Category: Super Dangan Ronpa 2
Genre: F/M, Island Mode (Dangan Ronpa), romantic simulation glitches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-23
Updated: 2019-11-23
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:35:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21529153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/muined/pseuds/muined
Summary: “These things happen to Ibuki,” she said by way of explanation.“This defies all logic. A shared hallucination.Folie a deux,” said Togami thoughtfully. “Or at least that's what Sonia would call it, I’m sure, were she here.”
Relationships: Mioda Ibuki/Ultimate Imposter
Comments: 25
Kudos: 55





	thrash & flail

**Author's Note:**

> My OTP since 2013, a story I’ve had in my head for years. Remember how the premise of Island Mode is that it’s an alternate timeline in which Usami beat Monobear in combat and so the simulation continues as originally planned, i.e. as a very wholesome rehabilitative work-for-pay-to-buy-items-to-give-your-friends/romantic interests slice-of-lifey game? Okay, good, I’m glad you remember. Orenronen LP speech conventions, because I'm old.

Somebody up there must like Ibuki, or at least like to make things interesting for her, because somebody had to have intervened to make sure that when she found herself in a predicament it was Byakuya-chan who answered her wails for “Haaaaalp!!! Ambulance! Fire!! Search ’n’ rescue!” Byakuya-chan, on whom she’d nursed a crush for weeks, in her cabin—these things didn’t happen outside of otome games. But here he was, large as life, frowning up at her. Usually that’d be _down_ at her, but Ibuki’s predicament, that which had necessitated her yellering, had flipped things. She’d awoken that morning to find herself hanging upside-down from the ceiling. The laws of gravity, it seemed, had ceased to apply to her.

“Personal polarity reversal,” Ibuki panted, recovering her breath from the screaming. Togami stood in the doorway, polishing his glasses on his shirtfront before replacing them on his nose and staring again at Ibuki in disbelief. “These things happen to Ibuki,” she said by way of explanation.

“This defies all logic. A shared hallucination. _Folie a deux_ ,” said Togami thoughtfully. “Or at least that’s what Sonia would call it, I’m sure, were she here.”

“What would Byakuya-chan call it, were he—he _is_ here! What would he say?”

“He’d wonder if superglue was involved,” Togami said drily. “He’s a skeptic that way.” 

Ibuki lifted first her left and then her right foot to demonstrate that superglue was not involved. “Ibuki thinks this must be a glitch—man, the programmers sure have digi-egg on their faces.”

Togami looked vaguely disturbed. “What programmers? Don’t talk nonsense. Should I alert the others?”

Ibuki considered this. “No-oo. Sometimes Ibuki likes stares, but...everybody crowding in here to get a look...she doesn’t want to feel like a carnival freak. Let’s keep the _folie_ between us.”

Togami nodded. “If that’s what you want, Mioda.” Togami had a Usami-mandated shift of island clean-up duty that day, so he had to leave her alone: “Stay inside,” he instructed. “I suspect you’d float away if you went out.”

“This was Ibuki’s off day,” she sulked. “Ibuki was going to go to the beach and then have a bath. Ibuki used her allowance on lavender-smelling bath salt from the Rocketpunch Mart!”

“It’ll keep. And the ocean will be there.” This was some comfort to Ibuki: Byakuya-chan always did know exactly what to say.

There was nothing, absolutely nothing for Ibuki to do. The ceiling was a singularly unenriching environ. She slept a little but the popcorn texture was uncomfortable; she skinned her knee rolling over. She imagined what would happen if she and Togami were discovered by aliens and taken to be representative of the entire human race. “A typical mating pair,” Ibuki’s imaginary alien announced, in a nasal tone because little green men just _must_ sound nasally, “as evidenced by these two specimens, consists of two highly dimorphic individuals: the larger very large and drab, with dull pigmentation, and the other tiny and vibrant and in possession of a set of large, threatening keratin horns, possibly of use in mating, or for intimidation in sexual competition.” When Ibuki tired of that, she folded her legs up against her brow and embedded her eyes in her sharp kneecaps, and left them there until stars waltzed in. She found that if she stood she could look at her reflection in the bathroom mirror, and so, stir-crazy, she hiked up her blouse and counted her ribs, drummed on them like a washboard, watched little nerves jump when she stretched. Ibuki stringbean, Ibuki rangey-pea, Ibuki bolted radicchio. She imagined herself as a seed, curling into a fetal ball before sending up a snaky plumule of an arm. “Germination!” Ibuki shouted, and sprung up and out into a jumping-jack X. Audienceless, she succeeded only in tangling her hair in the shower curtainrod. 

Togami was late coming back and Ibuki briefly entertained the idea that he’d forgotten about her, as she watched the sun dip below the sea through the cabin’s floor-to-ceiling sliding door. But then there was a knock at the door, and Togami entered carrying grocery bags.

“You brought me gifts?!?” Ibuki squealed, forgetting in her excitement to speak in third person.

“Just dinner,” Togami said, unpacking his bags. “And snacks. The necessaries. I didn’t know what you liked to eat so I chose things that rem—mm. I mean.” He held up a package of dried hibiscus flowers and another of star-shaped konpeito. “Spiky things.”

“Ibuki could subsist on these,” she said of the dry flowers, overjoyed. “Hmmmm. Pop quiz: what kind of bird would Byakuya-chan be if he was a bird? Ibuki’s been thinking about birds of paradise.”

“A very silly question.”

“It’s a getting-to-know-you question! Ibuki’ll start: she’d be a mynah!”

“The talky ones, yes? Appropriate. Mm. Me, maybe a cuckoo.”

“Why? Ibuki was thinking peacock.”

“No reason,” he mumbled, looking down and away. “First bird to come to mind. Byakuya Togami doesn’t have spare time to devote to frivolous thought exercises. Where’s your hot plate, Mioda?”

In shirtsleeves, and looking very well for it, he made her dinner: defrosted chicken strips, rice and powdered yellow curry. She insisted that he throw the chicken up to her strip by individual strip so she could catch them in her mouth like a trained seal, but he insisted that she eat her rice from the bowl. He finished eating before shе did, of course, and while she struggled to catch up he noticed her skinned knees and fussed over her with peroxide and cotton swabs from the cabinet under the sink. Ibuki was made to stretch one leg at a time floorward so Togami could dab at her cuts—when the peroxide foamed over and stung, she winced, yowled and kicked. Togami only narrowly avoided a blow to the chin.

He helped her bathe by detaching the motile showerhead from its dock and handing it up to her on the bathroom ceiling, where she sat cross-legged beside the light fixture. 

“Ibuki hopes Bossman Usami doesn’t take a fee for water damage out of Ibuki’s salary.”

“I’m sure she can be made to see reason. One’s toilette, Mioda, is more important.”

“Ibuki’s body can be cleaned but her mind will remain filthy as ever!” Ibuki declared.

“Glad to hear it,” Togami replied, without affect. He handed her the soap and a washcloth, too, and left her to sing, as best she could remember the words in English, “Buffalo gals won’tcha come out tonight, come out tonight, come out tonight...and the dish ran away with the spoon.” When she finished showering and had chased any leftover water out of her ears (her moneymakers), she put on her red tartan briefs and her favorite recent purchase from the Rocketpunch Mart, a tee shirt printed all over with bats in flight. At close range one noticed that each of the bats had Monobear’s face. (After his defeat at the paws of his sister, he had contented himself with the manufacture and sale of his own brand of casualwear.)

“You like?” she asked when she came out of the bathroom.

“Yes, very becoming,” Togami said. “For such a cheap readymade, ah, garment,” he added, coughing into his hand.

“Rocketpunch Mart didn’t have any frilly negligees.” Preparing for sleep, she removed each of the sharp studs in her ears and dropped them from her spot over the bed into the abalone shell on her bedside table. “Ibuki’s glad she got Byakuya-chan for to watch over her,” Ibuki said. What she wanted to say, but couldn’t, was that when around him she felt like a wobbly pencil drawing under a wash of weak watercolor, like a dashed-off children’s book illustration. She _loved_ him. She couldn’t tell him. One of the things she liked most about him was that her flirtations were never rejected, but received and sternly but gently set to one side, without comment. All of the others minded her overtures—not Byakuya-chan. But an “Ibuki loves you,” would be a bridge too far, she thought. For its illicity, the phrase felt delicious in her mouth, like sour candy, so she mouthed it to herself: Ibuki loves you. Ibuki _loves_ you. She’d always looked down her nose at ephemeral high school romances, but this was different. “Byakuya-chan will stay, won’t he?” she asked.

“He will, if you’ll have him.”

“Heck, he can have the bed if he likes.”

“It’s not much, but he’ll take it. But won’t you be cold up there, Mioda?”

“Maybe, but a blanket would fall off of me.”

“Here.” He began unbuttoning his shirt. Ibuki made a squeak, but saw soon after that he had a tee on underneath. That didn’t stop her heart from pounding. He peeled off the buttondown and tossed it up to her. “Put that on.”

“Byakuya-chan’s quick thinking is unmatched…! But boy howdy, does he walk around in more layers than an onion.” This really was too much! She was wearing Byakuya-chan’s shirt to bed! In the morning she’d wake up in it. “Man, Ibuki wishes that Byakuya-chan was a wall-crawler too; she’s always wanted to do it like bats do. Byakuya-chan’d make a really sexy sexbat.”

He frowned to conceal a smile. “Why do you say things like that, Mioda?”

“To make Byakuya-chan break, of course.”

“Break?”

“Yeah, like, actors? When actors break out of character and laugh during a serious scene?”

“A-huh.”

“Ibuki hates serious scenes. Gaggg.” She pointed a finger at her throat. “Would Byakuya-chan be Ibuki’s roadie? When we get back to the mainland? When Ibuki gets a set together and starts touring again, solo?”

“Roadie? Rather below my station, I should think, Mioda.”

“Naw, Byakuya-chan’ll like it! Ibuki promises. Just try it once! And backstage, there’s no limit to what we could get up to—!”

In her dream, she’s strapped into a carnival ride that revolves with such intensity that it lifts off from the earth and flies through space, a sort of chalk-on-a-blackboard outer space with stars like clumsy asterisks drawn by a child. Then she’s at a party, searching for Togami; she knows he’s there, but she doesn’t know where. There’s a crowd gathered; she peers on her tiptoes over a shoulder to see a magician preparing to pull a tablecloth off of a banquet table without disturbing the place-settings. She feels a cold dread in her stomach, and runs into the next room, where she abruptly drops into a blackness. But there in the blackness is Byakuya-chan: she can’t tell they’re falling or floating, the two of them, but they’re together. She swims weightlessly toward him and, oriented the wrong way, leaves a snailtrail of lip gloss on his brow and cheek and collar as she floats headfirst past him. She spins, righting herself, locks her wiry bare legs around his thighs, enmeshes the fingers of one hand in the hair on the nape of his neck, and uses the other to guide his large hand to her small breast.

“That’s quite enough, Mioda,” he tells her, matter-of-factly, with affection.

Ibuki woke—thinking “Ibuki has needs, damnit!”—to find herself hovering halfway between the ceiling and a sleeping Togami. He was on his back, with his arms crossed, and his brow furrowed: in exactly his default pose when awake, but snoring softly. Ibuki stifled a laugh with a palm to her mouth, delighted with this new discovery. So consistent, Byakuya-chan. Then she remembered that she was floating in midair, and realized that she was also descending, slowly. She thrashed and flailed, trying to steer herself to the side so she wouldn’t touch down right on top of him. She succeeded, but only barely, and landed curled on her side only inches to his right. He woke with a start—a light sleeper?—and she saw him search the ceiling above him for her before he found her beside him.

“I meant to stay awake for you, Mioda,” he said softly.

“Ibuki made it down okay.”

“You slept in your makeup.”

“Ya, the shower—Ibuki didn’t have a washcloth. It’s okay, she’s used to it. The lifestyles of the rich-ish and famous.”

“Here, I have—” He rolled over onto his side and rummaged on her bedside table. “Makeup wipes.”

“Why?”

“Hm? No reason. Free sample at the Rocketpunch Mart. Here.” He started to hand her one, but she caught his wrist and guided it to her face to dab at her eyeliner.

“Roadie practice, Byakuya-chan,” she said, closing both eyes. “You’d better learn now how to remove makeup, ‘cuz Ibuki’s gonna make you her personal dresser.”

“Mm. Don’t count on it.” Nevertheless, he took the wipe and followed her command, starting with her brows. She was shaking so hard herself that she couldn’t tell if he was shaking too, but she suspected that he was. She clasped her hands together under her chin as if in prayer and squeezed: _please, let this be real_. He was very gentle, but her eyes started to sting when he started in on her waterline.

“Mioda, you’re crying.”

“No, Ibuki’s eyes are just watering.” She opened them, and found herself looking into his eyes; he hadn’t put on his glasses yet. This was the first time she’d seen him without them. She realized that she didn’t want to kiss him, not right at this moment. “What am I doing, Byakuya-chan?”

“I confess I have no idea, Mioda.”

“Will Byakuya-chan take Ibuki to the ocean today? Now that her personal gravity has been restored?”

“Yes, but we’d best take things slowly. I don’t want to lose you.” They kept looking at each other, tenderly, until Togami rose and put his glasses back on. And then everything was back to normal.

“Speaking of floating, Ibuki can tread water forever. Forever! Gonna challenge Ibuki to back that claim up?”

“No. I won’t have you swimming. Do you know, Mioda, how fast undertow can carry an insubstantial person like yourself out to see?”

> _Byakuya-chan and I poked around in a tidepool. It’s hard for Ibuki to tell, of course, buuuuuut—he looked like he had a really good time._

> _(Heart get!)_

**Author's Note:**

> I have a special fondness for K-ton! in which Ibuki doesn’t know Twogami isn’t Togami, but...somehow...sees past the, uh, mantle. Incidentally, poems I associate with K-ton!: “Dover Beach” by Matthew Arnold, “Mad Girl’s Love Song” by Sylvia Plath, and “Sea Foam Palace” by Amy Gerstler.


End file.
